passport-http

What is passport-http?

The passport-http npm package provides HTTP Basic and Digest authentication strategies for Passport, a popular authentication middleware for Node.js. It allows you to authenticate requests using the HTTP Basic and Digest authentication schemes, which are often used for simple username and password authentication.

What are passport-http's main functionalities?

HTTP Basic Authentication

This feature allows you to authenticate users using HTTP Basic Authentication. The code sample demonstrates how to set up a BasicStrategy with Passport and protect an Express route.

const passport = require('passport');
const BasicStrategy = require('passport-http').BasicStrategy;

passport.use(new BasicStrategy(
  function(username, password, done) {
    User.findOne({ username: username }, function (err, user) {
      if (err) { return done(err); }
      if (!user) { return done(null, false); }
      if (!user.verifyPassword(password)) { return done(null, false); }
      return done(null, user);
    });
  }
));

// Express route
app.get('/protected', 
  passport.authenticate('basic', { session: false }),
  function(req, res) {
    res.json({ message: 'Access granted' });
  }
);

HTTP Digest Authentication

This feature allows you to authenticate users using HTTP Digest Authentication. The code sample demonstrates how to set up a DigestStrategy with Passport and protect an Express route.

const passport = require('passport');
const DigestStrategy = require('passport-http').DigestStrategy;

passport.use(new DigestStrategy({ qop: 'auth' },
  function(username, done) {
    User.findOne({ username: username }, function (err, user) {
      if (err) { return done(err); }
      if (!user) { return done(null, false); }
      return done(null, user, user.password);
    });
  },
  function(params, done) {
    // Validate nonces as necessary
    done(null, true);
  }
));

// Express route
app.get('/protected', 
  passport.authenticate('digest', { session: false }),
  function(req, res) {
    res.json({ message: 'Access granted' });
  }
);

Other packages similar to passport-http

passport-local

The passport-local package provides a simple username and password authentication strategy for Passport. Unlike passport-http, which uses HTTP Basic and Digest authentication schemes, passport-local is designed for form-based authentication, making it more suitable for web applications where users log in through a form.

passport-jwt

The passport-jwt package allows you to authenticate users using JSON Web Tokens (JWT). This is different from passport-http, which uses HTTP Basic and Digest authentication. JWT is often used for stateless authentication in modern web applications, providing a more secure and scalable solution compared to HTTP Basic and Digest.

passport-oauth2

The passport-oauth2 package provides OAuth 2.0 authentication strategies for Passport. Unlike passport-http, which uses HTTP Basic and Digest authentication, passport-oauth2 is designed for OAuth 2.0, a more complex and secure authentication protocol often used for third-party authentication (e.g., logging in with Google or Facebook).

README

Passport-HTTP

HTTP Basic and Digest authentication strategies for Passport.

This module lets you authenticate HTTP requests using the standard basic and digest schemes in your Node.js applications. By plugging into Passport, support for these schemes can be easily and unobtrusively integrated into any application or framework that supports Connect-style middleware, including Express.

Install

$ npm install passport-http

Usage of HTTP Basic

Configure Strategy

The HTTP Basic authentication strategy authenticates users using a userid and password. The strategy requires a verify callback, which accepts these credentials and calls done providing a user.

passport.use(new BasicStrategy(
  function(userid, password, done) {
    User.findOne({ username: userid }, function (err, user) {
      if (err) { return done(err); }
      if (!user) { return done(null, false); }
      if (!user.verifyPassword(password)) { return done(null, false); }
      return done(null, user);
    });
  }
));

Authenticate Requests

Use passport.authenticate(), specifying the 'basic' strategy, to authenticate requests. Requests containing an 'Authorization' header do not require session support, so the session option can be set to false.

For example, as route middleware in an Express application:

app.get('/private', 
  passport.authenticate('basic', { session: false }),
  function(req, res) {
    res.json(req.user);
  });

Examples

For a complete, working example, refer to the Basic example.

Usage of HTTP Digest

Configure Strategy

The HTTP Digest authentication strategy authenticates users using a username and password (aka shared secret). The strategy requires a secret callback, which accepts a username and calls done providing a user and password known to the server. The password is used to compute a hash, and authentication fails if it does not match that contained in the request.

The strategy also accepts an optional validate callback, which receives nonce-related params that can be further inspected to determine if the request is valid.

passport.use(new DigestStrategy({ qop: 'auth' },
  function(username, done) {
    User.findOne({ username: username }, function (err, user) {
      if (err) { return done(err); }
      if (!user) { return done(null, false); }
      return done(null, user, user.password);
    });
  },
  function(params, done) {
    // validate nonces as necessary
    done(null, true)
  }
));

Authenticate Requests

Use passport.authenticate(), specifying the 'digest' strategy, to authenticate requests. Requests containing an 'Authorization' header do not require session support, so the session option can be set to false.

For example, as route middleware in an Express application:

app.get('/private', 
  passport.authenticate('digest', { session: false }),
  function(req, res) {
    res.json(req.user);
  });

Examples

For a complete, working example, refer to the Digest example.

Tests

$ npm install --dev
$ make test

Credits

• Jared Hanson

License

The MIT License

Copyright (c) 2011-2013 Jared Hanson <http://jaredhanson.net/>